Get Action!

With Israel’s war on Gaza now reaching its 655th day, bringing the number of casualties in the strip to almost 60,000 Palestinians, city councils, both in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world, have been adopting resolutions officially calling for a ceasefire and divesting from Israeli companies and other enterprises involved in weapons manufacturing.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Katrina Mitchell-Kouttab, a member of the Manawatu-based human rights group Thyme for Action, about a petition of hers calling on the Palmerston North City Council to adopt a ceasefire motion and ethical investment policy.

If you’d like to sign this petition, you can find it here:

Currently, 19 out of 38 OECD countries use incineration as a form of waste management.

With the process leading to a range of negative impacts, such as air pollution, Co2 emissions and respiratory illnesses, Aotearoa has luckily remained incinerator free.

However, calls have been made by some activists to strengthen New Zealand’s legislation to ensure that incineration facilities are not opened up in Aotearoa.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Sue Coutts from Zero Waste Network New Zealand to discuss a petition calling on the government to keep New Zealand Incinerator-free.

If you'd like to sign this petition, you can find it here:

Winter is coming, and so is a projected increase in respiratory illnesses and COVID cases. Schools are particularly notorious breeding grounds for such diseases with children being more susceptible to respiratory illnesses.

Ultimately, this results in teachers also being subject to COVID and respiratory illnesses at a higher rate than other professions, and an increased number of teachers leaving the profession due to long COVID symptoms is worsening Aotearoa’s already severe teacher shortage.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Tara Forde from Aotearoa Covid Action, to discuss a petition of hers calling for the government to prevent the spread of COVID in our schools by making improvements to school air quality and improving accessibility to Booster Vaccines and Rapid Antigen Tests.

If you'd like to sign this petition, you can find it here:

For a number of years, Aotearoa has been dealing with a shortage of psychologists and similar professionals to deal with the growing mental health needs of the wider population, with estimates suggesting that an additional 1,000 more psychologists are needed to fill gaps in the profession.

In response to the country’s growing mental health needs, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announced a new Associate Psychologist role, consisting of recent post-graduates, to work alongside fully trained Psychologists.

However, a number of Psychologists and experts have criticised the introduction of this new role, saying that these associate Psychologists may be expected to take on the responsibilities of clinical Psychologists despite being underqualified.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Dr Kumari Valentine, a clinical psychologist based in Dunedin, who’s launched a petition calling on the government to roll back the introduction of the new Associate psychology role and look to other methods of filling gaps in the Psychology profession.

If you're interested in signing this petition, you can find it here: